The Second Girl(18)

“You got some goods on them, though? I mean once you hit the place.”

“Oh yeah. Couple of guns…lot of drugs.”

“I knew you would. I’m assuming the girl’s a good witness.”

“She’s still at the hospital. She’s pretty messed up, mentally and physically, but we managed to get a positive ID on the two I showed you pictures of as her captors. They’re held without bond.”

“She brought up another guy who is more than likely involved. I only got his first name—Edgar. She mention him?” I ask.

“She told us about him. We’re looking into it.”

“But she should be okay?”

“She’ll be all right. Physically, I mean. She asked about you a couple of times. Apparently you’re her hero.”

“She knows I’m not a cop anymore, then?”

“I didn’t tell her. Even if I did, she wouldn’t have cared.”

“Well, happy she’s safe now.”

“Amen, brother,” Davidson says. He repositions the memo pad on his lap and twirls the pen between two fingers. “Okay, so when I last spoke to you on the cell, you said something about exigent circumstances that led you to kick in the door of the house.”

“Yeah, I did,” I say with a slight nod.

“Tell me about it.”

“First, where’s the bathroom? I gotta take a mean piss.”

“Back out the door and directly to the left. Hit the buzzer and I’ll let you back in.”

“Be right back.”

I walk back out.

I open the door to the men’s room. It has two sinks, three stalls, and two urinals. I scan the room as if I think it’ll have surveillance cameras, but I realize I’m being paranoid so I enter one of the stalls and lock the latch.

I look around the ceiling area again just to make sure, then remove the pill container from my front pants pocket. I close the toilet seat, straddle it backward, and pull out two capsules. I twist one of them open and squeeze the powder onto the inner part of the pill container’s cap so it’s a little pile. I do the same with the second because I want a big hit. I carefully set the cap on the toilet’s water container.

I twist the pill capsules back together and drop them into the pill container for later use, and flush the toilet for the noise. I pick up the lid and snort the pile of blow up my right nostril and then sniff a couple more times to bring it all in. I wipe the inner lid with my finger to gather the rest of the powder and rub it on my gums.

At the sink I check my nose, run a bit of water, sniff a couple more times, clean my nasal passages with a little water, and then wash my hands and exit.

I buzz to get in.

Davidson opens the door.

“I think I’ll take you up on that soda,” I say, and then walk in.





Fifteen



The cold soda feels good going down my throat; even the burning burp afterward feels good.

Davidson reclines in his chair with the memo pad on his lap and pen at the ready. He’s waiting for my answer to his question on how I came to discover the girl in the house.

Having been a cop gives me a certain advantage. I know the types of questions cops ask. I was up all night thinking about every possible question that Davidson might ask and how to answer it. How I came to find the girl is an obvious first question.

So I say, “First of all, my client does not know any of the boys you arrested and is not involved with anything illegal.”

“All right.”

“He’s just a hardworking man who lives in Virginia with his family and does a lot of handyman work here in the city. He was doing some work on a home in the Adams Morgan area and got all his tools stolen. I’m talkin’ air compressor, ceramic tile cutter, circular saw, drills, reciprocating saw, and on and on. Everything he owns to make a living. Shit’s expensive, and he certainly didn’t have the money to replace any of it. Well, an associate of mine who works this kind of stuff gave me a call and asked if I’d be willing to take it on ’cause he didn’t have the time. He advised me that the client didn’t have a lot of money, but would be willing to trade in labor. And you know my house on Twelfth, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I still got a lot of work I’d like to get done, so I told him that I’d meet with the guy, but couldn’t promise anything. So I meet with him and come to like him and feel sorry for him. Actually, I don’t know why I took it on, except that I felt sorry for him having his livelihood taken like that. I don’t work cases like this and don’t know the first thing about recovering stolen property. But I do know drugs and that most of those types of crimes are committed by crackheads. And I still have my contacts on the street. One of them led me to a burglar in the area who is known to target construction sites and homes under renovation. This source of mine told me that they’d commonly trade the stolen property for crack at Sixteenth and Park. So I set up a bit of surveillance there.”

“So you have photographs?”

“No. I didn’t get a chance to do that. So it doesn’t take me long to figure out those boys you showed me the photos of are running things pretty hard. I also manage to see some deals being made in exchange for possible stolen property. I watch them put the shit in the trunk of their vehicle, and at the end of their workday I follow them and that’s what leads me to the house on Kenyon.”